Monday, October 19, 2009

Anti-same-sex-marriage attorney admits in court he doesn't know how gay marriage is harmful

The conflict over Proposition 8, the anti-marriage equality proposal in California continues in federal court. A legal battle is brewing over the discriminatory nature of Prop 8. The proponents of Prop 8 have their lawyer in court defending the measure.

That lawyer, Charles Cooper, claimed that marriage equality would harm children. This is the sort of claim that the anti-equality advocates have been pushing all along. But a court room is not the place for meaningless, political sound bites. And the judge in this case, Vaughn Walker, wasn't falling for a sound bite.

Because Cooper had claimed that marriage laws further procreation, and allowing gays to marry would somehow harm procreation, Walker asked: "What is the harm to the procreation purpose you outlined of allowing same-sex couples to get married?" That's a fairly, straight forward question and one that Cooper clearly should have anticipated since he claims are central to his argument.

But Cooper seemed shocked by the question. He stumbled for words saying: "My answer is, I don't know. I don't know." Well, if the lawyer defending Prop 8 doesn't know how gay marriage harms the "procreative" purpose of marriage, who does?

There you have it, folks: Same-sex marriage is bad, but we don't know exactly why, and we couldn't prove it if we did.